"Palestinian" as an Arab ethnic group is
a modern political creation since 1967

"Palestinian" as an Arab ethnic group is
a modern political creation which has no basis in fact - and had never
had any international or academic credibility before 1967.

Before the crushing 1967 "Six-Day" defeat of the Arab countries by Israel,
the "Palestine-for-the-Palestinians" cause was met by "complacency, and...
crass ignorance." The prominent Arab Palestinian activist, writer, and
innovator Musa Alami tried virtually singlehandedly to interest the Arab
world in this propaganda program in 1948.

In Iraq he was told by the Prime Minister that all that was
needed was "a fewbrooms" to drive the Jews into the sea; by confidants
of Ibn Saud in Cairo, that "once we get the green light from the British
we can easily throw out the Jews."[8]

But the reality was much more complicated than the Iraqi Prime Minister
had suggested. The Arabs had initiated hostilities in Palestine[9] upon
the November 1947 United Nations' partition of Palestine into a Jewish
and an Arab state," [10] employing outside forces and arms from Arab states
as distant as Iraq[11] to prevent the creation of the Jewish state, "a
series of killings and counterkillings that would continue for decades."[12]
[See Chapters 9ff.] Thousands of Arabs, including the more affluent, left
for nearby Arab states before Jewish statehood." When Israel's independence
was declared in 1948, the Arab forces combined to crush it.[14]

9.Muhamed Nimer Al Hawari described the Arab leaders'
ruthless incitement of the Arabs in Jaffa in December 1947: ". . . Jaffa
was boiling: every second that passed you heard a new rumour, and after
every minute the imaginary tales and lies became bigger, finally, they
were accepted as definite truth by the public. When the sun was setting
down, many of the Mufti henchmen patrolled the streets in private and lorry
cars, calling upon the people: oh! people, oh! men, oh! heros; Help ...
Help . . . , stop the Jewish attack! They have attacked your brothers
in the Manshiya; they pillaged their properties; burned their holdings
and raped their women and girls. They have committed awful acts of horror
and brutality against your brothers!! In but a few minutes Jaffa's inhabitants
were incited and agitated shouted and fired in the air:--On Them! On Them!
On Tel-Aviv, the town of the wicked ... Groups and individuals, they marched
on and among them, behind them or in front of them, went the Mufti henchmen
belittling the Jewish strength. . . " The Secret of the Catastrophe [Arabic]
(Nazareth, 1955), pp. 34-37, cited in translation by Rony E. Gabbay, A
Political Study of the Arab-Jewish Conflict: The Arab Refugee Problem (A
Case Study) (Geneva: Librairie E. Droz; Paris: Librairie Minard, 1959),
pp. 82-83.

11.In March 1948, according to a study, these outside
forces included 2,500 Syrians, 2,500 Iraqis, "several hundred" Lebanese
and Egyptians, and Yugoslav Muslims as well. Harry Sacher, Israek The Establishment
ofa State (London, 195 1), p. 235, cited by Gabbay, Political Study, p.
81. General Isma'il Safwat reported to the League Palestine Committee the
total number of Arab volunteers as "7,700 persons," March 23, 1948, Iraq
Parliamentary Investigating Commission, cited in Gabbay, p. 81.

12.Nicholas Bethell, The Palestine Triangle: The Struggle
for the Holy Land, 1935-48 (New York: G. Putnam's Sons, 1979), p. 3 5 1;
Azzarn Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, described "three characteristics
of the future war: the belief in glorious death as a road to paradise,
the opportunities of lust and the Bedouin love of slaughter for its own
sake." Interview in Akhbar al-Yom, October 11, 1947, cited by Gabbay, Political
Study, p. 83, n. 103.

13.In September 1947, the Political Committee of the Arab
League, at its meeting in Sofer, Lebanon, advised the Arab governments
to accept and care for the evacuees from Palestine. Iraq Parliamentary
Investigation Commission on the Causes of the Failure in Palestine, submitted
to Iraq Parliament on September 4, 1949, Appendix 8, pp. 43-50, cited in
Gabbay, Political Study, p. 92; see also "The Arab Refugee Problem and
How It Can Be Solved," proposals submitted to the United Nations General
Assembly, December 195 1, by Dewey Anderson, Executive Director, Public
Affairs Institute; Archibald MacLeish, Harvard University; Henry Atkinson,
Church Peace Union; Ivan Lee Holt, Methodist Bishop of Missouri; Kenneth
Scott Latourette, President, American Baptist Convention; Daniel Marsh,
Chancellor, Boston University; James T. Shotwell, Carnegie Endowment; James
G. Patton, President, Farmers International and Cooperative Union; Norman
B. Nash, Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts; and others.

14."This will be a war of extermination and a momentous
massacre . . . like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." Azzam Pasha,
Secretary General of the Arab League, at Cairo press conference, May 15,
1948, New York Times, May 16, 1948.

This page was produced by Joseph
E. KatzMiddle Eastern Political and Religious
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